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Americans surprisingly spent less in April, the first monthly drop in a year and a potentially worrisome sign for an economic rebound after a slow winter. Consumer spending was down $8.1 billion, or 0.1%, last month, the Commerce Department said Friday. The decrease came after strong spending growth in March, revised up slightly Friday to a 1% gain. That was the best performance since August 2009. Economists did not expect consumers to keep up the March pace. But forecasts still called for spending to grow by 0.2% last month. Part of the reason for the decline, the first since a 0.2% drop in April 2013, could be that personal income growth was down. Incomes rose 0.3% compared to...

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Americans surprisingly spent less in April, the first monthly drop in a year and a potentially worrisome sign for an economic rebound after a slow winter.
Consumer spending was down $8.1 billion, or 0.1%, last month, the Commerce Department said Friday....

Market Match, an innovative program that aims to increase the amount of fresh produce available to low-income families by providing them matching funds to shop at farmers markets, has received a $2.5-million grant from First 5 L.A. that may as much as...

The nation's airlines are expecting to rebound from a harsh winter, with air-travel numbers reaching their highest level in six years this summer.
Airlines for America, a trade group for the nation's air carriers, predicted Thursday that 210 million...

WASHINGTON — Renewal of important expired federal tax benefits for homeowners took a major step forward recently, but the route to final congressional approval is beginning to look longer — and potentially bumpier — than previously expected.
Here's...

It's nice to know that tens of millions of extra dollars will go to 37 low-income schools after the Los Angeles Unified School District settled a class-action suit on behalf of students. But the lawsuit, undertaken by the American Civil Liberties Union...

ORLAND, Calif. — When they climbed on board the bus, most were strangers. Not friends, nor classmates.
They were called together by aspiration: They were headed to Humboldt State University through a program designed for underprivileged students. Most...

For nearly two decades, Barbara Garnaus maintained a modest, delicate life balance: keeping her part-time Orange County school district job and juggling her bills and credit card debt.
Now 63, living alone, she counts every dollar, has no cellphone and...

Peter Taylor, the UC system’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, said Tuesday that he is leaving the university to run a Los Angeles-based education foundation that will focus on helping low- income students succeed in K-12 schools...

Southern California is home to some of the most overpriced housing markets in the country. And that's taking the wind out of the recovery.
Three Southland regions ranked among the five most overvalued markets in the U.S. in a new report by real estate...

SACRAMENTO — Millions of dollars in welfare benefits are ending up in banks' pockets each year when poor Californians access their taxpayer-funded benefits, according to state statistics and a report released Tuesday.
Like many other states, California...

Many Californians are confused by Obamacare, and news this week about changing enrollment deadlines may be giving people an even bigger headache.
Here are some answers to common questions as the final days tick down for enrollment under the Affordable...

WASHINGTON -- Consumer spending increased last month the most since November as Americans appeared to start shaking off the effects of severe winter weather.
Spending rose 0.3% in February, up from 0.2% the previous month, the Commerce Department said...

As often happens when the financial demands on government social programs rise, there's been a lot of talk lately about the need to return to the traditional American system of community and faith-based help for the needy: charity, not government...

There should be a rule--or even a law--that politicians who propose "fixes" to Social Security should at least show they know something about the program. By that standard, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., would flunk.
What's...

A citywide coalition of community groups is demanding that 80% of $1 billion in new school funding headed to L.A. Unified be spent on needy students according to decisions made by local schools rather than district bureaucrats.
Coalition members plan...

It's a fair criticism of what's written about life as a wage slave -- from journalists and economists alike -- that it's delivered by people who don't have firsthand experience of what that life is like. As a result, a great deal of reporting about worker...

Talk about a "poverty trap"! The phrase was recently used by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan, R-Wisc., to suggest that the nation's panoply of programs to aid low-income households was keeping them from rising into the middle class....

Will plastic water bottles soon go the way of the single-use plastic bag in Los Angeles and other big cities? The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to ban the sale of drinking water in single-use bottles on city property. The rule would...